


84. Echoes

by djchika



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Angst, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, crisscolfer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 04:18:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djchika/pseuds/djchika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris and Darren's story told in ten years. (Chris POV)</p>
            </blockquote>





	84. Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> Nik has spent the past week teaching me how to use my words properly so it's ironic that I have no words for how grateful I am that she helped me through this.
> 
> That woman is an angel and a sweetheart and my soul twin.

**1.**

Chris at 19 looked at the world eyes brimming with possibility. Everything brand new and too bright, the vibrant hues of fame bleeding into his life until it was awash with color.

He was Cinderfella and the world was a fairytale waiting to come true.

It took a few months before he realized that the colors were nothing more than reflections against a glass cage.

It didn’t make him stop believing in fairytales.

 

**2.**

Chris at 20 found himself tripping over his own two feet trying to catch up to a boy who didn’t look at him like the baby, didn’t see Chris as too young to go out and party, didn’t see him as too innocent to be shown the evils of the world.

Summer was spent full of light touches, lingering glances and whispers that promised little but meant too much to Chris.

It was afterward, when he was no longer wrapped in the world they had built for themselves during the tour, when he befriended a new boy who asked questions that made his throat constrict with the lack of answers, that Chris finally found his footing and realized he wasn’t interested in the game they were playing.

 

**2.4**

Chris at 20 and four months realized that no matter his intentions, life would complicate itself in the worst possible way. Complicated in that nothing about him felt private, in that everything was on the line, in that kisses shared were also secrets he wished he didn't need to keep.

“Color within the lines,” they said.

“Your career would benefit from paint by numbers,” they said.

“You’ll be allowed Avant Garde soon,” they promised.

Chris listened, accepted, obeyed.

Who was he to resist when it was all he’d ever known?

 

**3.**

Chris at 21 relished the freedom of adulthood. He didn’t know that age was but a number and adulthood didn’t come with a get out of jail free card.

They removed his leash and for the first time since he stepped out of Clovis, he could breathe again.

The eve of his birthday was greeted with a kiss from familiar lips, the slide of warm hands against his body and laughter against his skin. All of it was welcomed in the safety of his house.

The morning came with consequences and an empty bed.

 

**3.3**

Chris at 21 and three months allowed himself to shatter. The brittle armor that barely protected his too eager heart had fractured down the middle. He stood naked and raw, asking for more than what the boy was willing to give. He asked because the whispers and glances and secret smiles never felt like enough anymore. Not when his skin craved for permanence, his heart sought a beat to match its own and his soul ached for a home to tether itself to.

He was younger but he knew what he wanted.

He was older but didn’t have a clue.

Chris had lived enough of his life trapped between yes and no. He wasn’t doing it again.

They remained friends. Everything was fine. Nothing had changed. They made a living out of playing pretend after all.

 

**4.**

Chris at 22 literally fell into a new boy. Soon after he fell in love with him too. Fell in a way that felt like he was floating down a gentle river. No bumps. No bruises. Nothing to shake his already fragile heart. The fall was uneventful and he was grateful for it.

It didn’t make the change easier, didn’t make him feel vindicated, didn’t make the look of betrayal and jealousy easier to swallow. Instead he took all the hurt and heartbreak and piled so much anger on it until there was a wall 5 feet 8 inches around his heart.

The fog of tension was so thick that when they announce that Kurt and Blaine were breaking up, Chris’ bones melted with relief.

 

**4.5**

Chris at 22 and five months had snow swirling around him, breath coming out in small puffs and a boy beside him making his blood sing. It was an eleven hour shoot and by the fourth hour all of his defenses had crashed to the ground with the need to just be.

In the magic of the evening he pretended that the jagged edges of wounds cracked open didn’t exist, that Prince Charming was in fact a boy with warm golden eyes full of sunshine, that it was okay for love to seep from his every pore until he was bleeding from it.

The fairytale ended when the sun came out.

A few months later they both stepped out of the shadows, both with hearts that hadn’t quite pulled apart but both with fingers intertwined with another’s.

 

**5.**

Chris at 23 learned the harsh truth that his carefully crafted world wasn't immune to demons. He learned that happily ever might not exist in life after all. Just the final dull note that followed "The End".

The windows of his soul pulled close one by one. In that darkness he sought comfort, hid until nothing and no one could ever steal away a piece of his heart again with such finality.

It took a month before he felt like himself again. Until a gentle hand helped him up and steadied him on his feet. A despicable guilt washed over him when his heart beat a wish that the hand he gripped wasn’t cool and dry but warm and almost clammy with sweat.

 

**6.**

Chris at 24 gathered his courage and broke a good man’s heart.

 

**7\. and 8.**

Chris at 25 and 26 stood alone and was happier for it. Surrounded by books and movies and awards that well-meaning friends had warned would isolate him but had instead made his life richer. He had learned along the way that his dreams didn't need to come with sacrifice. That achievement didn't equate to loneliness.

The world had shifted its focus until he was no longer the forefront in every photo. No longer a boy leading a charge but a man who had made his mark in the world.

On the most important night of his young life, he smiled wide, bursts of light blinding him he almost missed the man standing to the side. Pride and joy radiated from him until Chris’ heart felt so full he had to look away.

 

**9.**

Chris at 27 was scared shitless as a tenuous connection begun. Stuttered. Stopped. Started again.

He wondered if this time around it would be easy for them.

 

**10.**

Chris at 28 realized he was wrong. Love was easy. Relationships were hard. Life continued past happily ever after.

No, it wasn’t easy but they tried. They tried because the alternative was a future as dry as dust.

It took them a year before Chris felt like he had dug into the deepest crevices of his chest, hollowed himself out until nothing remained.

He finally felt like the boy who flew. The weight of past hurts and a history so mired with confusion falling away. Now he could look into the swirl of gold and brown and allow himself to get lost in them without the fear of getting caught.

“I love you,” Darren whispered, soft but full of the promises he couldn’t keep before. Chris felt that promise now, felt the way it grounded Darren and drove away the uncertainty that had plagued him when they were both young and foolish.

Fingers slid between his, a gentle kiss placed over his knuckles like a secret tucked away, and this time it was one he was happy to keep. It overwhelmed him but he no longer felt the fear of too much too fast.

None of it erased their history. It didn't excuse the mistakes they had made or the pain they had caused, but for the first time Chris allowed himself to get lost in the wonder of a fairytale he had long forgotten. He allowed himself to sink into rightness of a moment where nothing mattered except for two souls reuniting as one.

It wasn’t easy. None of it was. But they tried because when the alternative was a life full of if onlys and what ifs, a life where Chris would always feel his spine stiffen at the sight of a curly haired boy and a life where Darren would always feel a little bit lost, then you tried.

And tried they did.

 

**\+ 2**

Chris at 30 was solid, sure and ready. He looked over at the driver’s seat, at the man who had cupped his heart in his hands and anchored himself deep into Chris' soul and the millions of lifetimes he had lived, lifetimes where he had lost and found Darren again and again, seemed to resonate in the crisp autumn air.

The breeze that passed through the open windows tickled Chris’ hair almost like a blessing, the caverns of his chest bearing a rare effulgence that threatened to spill over until everything his heart touched was brilliant and shining and clear.

Darren’s eyes glowed in the sunlight and in them Chris saw a future with days spent running errands, mornings spent in bed and evenings curled up on the couch. Time spent together to make up for the time they had lost, looking forward to a future that stretched out beyond what both their young hearts had been able to see.  

It was a decade of beginnings and endings, of false starts and stops but in the very end, the one that really mattered, they had found each other again.

 


End file.
